Hot Ride at Riverside

Testing a Ford GT is an automotive kick you'll never forget, even when you try it in the hottest spot this side of Death Valley.

June 1970 By BROCK YATES

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“Now listen you guys, I’m going to take it very easy for the first couple of laps. This is a strange track to me and the one car in the world I don’t want to bend up. Believe me, I’m going to cool it.”

Ken Miles nodded noncommittally and Shelby American mechanic Gordon Chance looked a trifle concerned, although a pair of wrap-around sun glasses concealed his eyes. Knowing as little as they did about me, they still seemed terribly casual about letting me loose in one of the three Ford GT40 roadsters in the world. After all, I’d only had a couple of familiarization laps with Miles around the oily, sun-baked 2.6 miles of Riverside Raceway and they had no way of knowing whether I was going to over-rev the engine and tear up the Colotti gearbox before I got the car off the pit apron. Sure, I held an SCCA competition license, but what did that mean? I could think of half a dozen guys with the same license who couldn’t drive nails. And my promises of caution couldn’t be cutting much with Miles and Chance either. Both of them knew automotive journalists who harbored the notion that they were unfulfilled world’s champions and took every opportunity to display their prowess in somebody else’s automobile. No, they would wait and see with me.

I tugged on my coveralls and buckled my helmet with two things in mind: Don’t do anything dumb and don’t try to be a hero. It had only been through the personal kindness of ol’ Carroll Shelby that CAR and DRIVER was being given the chance to drive the Ford GT and I wanted very badly not to screw up.

Miles opened the door and I slid into the semi-reclining seat. He pointed to three toggle switches on the dash. “These two are for the fuel pumps and this is the ignition,” he said in his precise English way, flipping them to the on position. I secured the shoulder harness and awaited further instructions. “You’ll have to watch the clutch,” he noted, smiling. “It has only three-quarters of an inch of movement and everybody finds it a bit dodgey at the start. And oh, yes, you’d best double-clutch on both up and down shifts. The Colotti works much better when you use it that way.” He paused for a minute, as if trying to recall any other instructions. “I guess that does it, you’ll find the starter button on the tunnel beside your left knee. Have fun.”